Someone Who Listens: Inside the Role of a Resident Support Specialist
The Resident Support Specialist (RSS) at Sanford Behavioral Health supports clients and assists with day-to-day operations. It’s an important role, because the RSS is also responsible for creating a community and ensuring that everyone in treatment feels welcome and safe.
The RSS has a long list of responsibilities, including safety checks and inspiring participation in recreational and recovery activities. However, being a “friend in need” and someone who listens is perhaps the most important role they perform. We sat down with RSS Jack Kooyman to discuss his job and how Sanford clients inspire him and his recovery every day.
Someone who listens: Inside the Role of a Resident Support Specialist
Limelight Interview with Jack Kooyman, RSS
SBH: Let’s start by hearing about your role at Sanford Behavioral Health.
Jack Kooyman:Â At Sanford, I’m a resident support specialist (RSS), focusing on helping clients in the residential treatment program (including Detox) and in supportive living. My role is to answer our clients’ questions and address their needs. For example, they may want to see their therapist or a nurse, and I arrange that. But it could be something much simpler, like tracking down a hair dryer or a book. Simply put, I am a client advocate. I am here for them.
I work second shift (3:00 pm to 11:00 pm), which is pre-bedtime, so I hear things [smiles]. Clients are not in process groups during much of the time I am with them. One of my colleagues says, “RSS’s are hanger-outers,” and that can be true. However, “hanging out” and just being there when clients are ready to share something is important work. I think we have created a safe place for people to be vulnerable.
SBH: Tell us a bit about excursions and outside recovery meetings.
Jack Kooyman: Being there for clients includes things like driving them to off-site recovery meetings or sitting in on on-site recovery meetings at Sanford. We have a recovery meeting almost every night. We also have weekend excursions and outside activities on Sanford’s 18-acre campus. The RSS team manages those activities, focusing on safety, community, reviving interests, and fun.
SBH: You have been in recovery for 15 years. How does that influence your work at Sanford?
Jack Kooyman: Being in recovery brings me closer to the clients in our care. I’m not a therapist, but I can share what worked for me. Among other things, staying connected with other people in recovery. I am a sponsor outside Sanford, too. When we return from outside recovery meetings, I am there to talk about the experience and help them connect with their therapist when they want to process something from an outside source.
SBH: How did you find Sanford Behavioral Health?
Jack Kooyman: Prior to retiring in late 2023, I spent 40+ years leading community- and faith-based organizations focused on improving and supporting the lives of individuals facing personal, social, spiritual, and economic challenges. Nearly a year after retiring, I felt a strong need to do something meaningful and give back. Giving back is part of my recovery program, too. I have friends who have been through the Sanford Behavioral Health Substance Use Program, and I heard good things about Sanford from them. So, I applied for a part-time job, and the rest is history.
SBH: What are the keys to recovery?
Jack Kooyman: When you have experienced what I have, you learn that staying connected with others in recovery is one of the keys to long-term recovery. There are many paths to long-term recovery, but for me, working the 12 Steps and applying them to my life has also been key. Of course, helping others gives me a refreshing perspective on addiction and recovery that inspires me every day.
SBH: What are the pitfalls?
Jack Kooyman: As a person in recovery, there is an intuition about who will and won’t make it. Perhaps a person doesn’t seem serious to me. Still, I avoid thinking anything negative because I’ve been proven wrong before. Kudos to anyone who makes the call, walks through the door, and enters treatment. When they get here, it just starts to click.
SBH: What is fun about your job?
Jack Kooyman: We laugh a lot. My fellow RSS members enjoy working together; we are a tight group from different backgrounds. I also enjoy the diversity of our clients and getting to know them. They are a microcosm that reflects the community at large.
Sanford West Behavioral Health Campus
SBH: What about the challenges?
Jack Kooyman: Individuals who are new to recovery are struggling to regulate their emotions. There is a great deal of impatience [smiles]. Raw emotions can be a challenge. This is when being a hanger-outer is a good thing. It is best to listen with compassion, try to understand, and just be there. We have all had clients apologize, but we understand, and for some of us, being an RSS brings back memories of our early recovery.
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SBH: What makes Sanford a great place to work?
Jack Kooyman: There is a very special culture at Sanford West Behavioral Health Campus. It’s not institutional, but welcoming and compassionate, even as we grow. The staff’s and leadership’s passion sets the tone.
SBH: Do you use any catchphrases or have a motto?
Jack Kooyman: One day at a time. Recovery is a WE journey, not a ME journey. That’s my story. I could not get or stay sober, no matter how hard I tried, until I walked into the rooms of this beautiful community. Becoming sober has introduced me to a spiritual life. A real connection and experience I refer to as the “divine mystery.”
SBH: Anything else you’d like to say?
Jack Kooyman:Â Yes. When you stay connected to the recovery community, you’ll hear what you need to hear, right? You will also give back to others who are struggling. You have to give it away in order to keep it. If I can help someone else, I don’t need to toot my own horn. That is enough.
SBH: We’ll leave it there, Jack. One day at a time.Â
Thanks!
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